One of the more striking features of the debate over the Coase theorem is the wide variety of models and theoretical frameworks used to discuss, evaluate, or otherwise analyze Coase’s result - an artifact of an ambiguity in Coase’s reasoning. Some framed Coase’s result in a bargaining...

Adam Smith turned economic theory on its head in 1776 when he declared that the pursuit of self-interest mediated by the market itself--not by government--led, via an invisible hand, to the greatest possible welfare for society as a whole. The Hesitant Hand examines how subsequent economic...

In spite of the efforts made over the past several decades to bring to the fore the important contributions of the Italian public finance tradition - La Scienza delle finanze - this body of analysis remains relatively unknown outside of Italy. The same cannot be said of the seminal work of Knut...

Jeremy Bentham's utilitarian analysis of crime and punishment is regularly characterized as an inspiration for the economic analysis of law, whereas Henry Sidgwick has been all but ignored in the discussions of the history of law and economics. Sidgwick is well known as the godfather of...

Jeremy Bentham's utilitarian analysis of crime and punishment is regularly characterized as an inspiration for the economic analysis of law, whereas Henry Sidgwick has been all but ignored in the discussions of the history of law and economics. Sidgwick is well known as the godfather of...

This essay is the first step in a larger effort to understand exactly how and why the marginal revolution gave us a theory of economic policy that evidenced an increased confidence in the ability of governmental policy actions to improve on the performance of the market. This was done via two...

One Friday afternoon a dozen or so years ago I sat in on a freshman honors seminar led by one of my colleagues. This weekly seminar featured guest speakers from various walks of life, and that week's speaker was a state legislator who happened to be a member of the Republican party. At one point...